Where to play ON the footboard

gretsch-o-rama

Senior Member
Hey everyone! I was hesitant to post a thread like this but decided to after not finding much about this in the search... Anyway, I was just hoping to get some opinions and knowledge about people's experience with this... I may have developed some bad habits like playing as far forward as possible on the footboard. It feels right but when listening back to my playing it seems I push/pull too much on the time...i.e. my beater being too late. I do bury the beater and I seem to be committed to that as I always seem to come back to it...So, what have you? Thank you Jason


On second thought, I may have posted this in the wrong section...A mod can move it. thank you
 
Do you play heel up or heel down?

If heel up - playing at the top of the footboard is a bit silly as you're not using the leverage of the pedal and also not giving the beater as much freedom to swing back, hence the burying.

The sweet spot is probably just above the half way point, depends on the pedal but it's generally the position where you can use nervous tension to knock out a stream of evenly spaced notes. If you play a double you also need to slide your foot forward and that's not possible if you're already at the end.

Not sure about heel down, I haven't played that way since I was starting out.
 
When I use heel-up for faster stuff, I actually am like 1 or 2 inches from the bottom of the pedal.
 
Thanks everyone, after some thought I feel for me it was a tuning issue(especially the relationship between the batter and resonant) and where on the seat I was sitting...thank for helping me in a moment of despair!
 
Back
Top